poem

Above is a photo of the church I went to for a long time before the well-known and greatly loved Priest, Father James Holland was retired. Behind is an incredible sunrise, something I had no idea could be so beautiful until I started getting up at 5:00 to take long walks to the grocery store or other places.

I have a lot on my mind right now. I think I am having a problem with a new medication, but it is hard to tell because I was diagnosed with diabetes earlier this year and am now not only taking a different injection, but also Metformin and a pill for high cholesterol. I have been losing weight and in general feeling better, but I have a strange drowsiness and loss of balance. It really seems like such a trap for those who have a mental illness, the medication makes you hungry and want to eat more, then the illness makes you unable to work and so the end result is you are in a major risk category for diabetes and heart disease and other disorders. I thought I was safe. I was overweight, but a lot of the weight on me was muscle and I was swimming nearly every day, going for walks. I was even careful about how much sugar I took in. Sadly it was not enough.

A lot of people think diabetes is not a big deal, but the fact is that you can lose limbs, go blind, you lose an average of 12 years off your life expectancy. The only really good thing about it is that having diabetes has made me pay a lot more attention to what I put into my body.

It’s funny though, a few years ago when I worked as a stage hand, I would burn myself out working with all that heavy stuff, then I would swim and lift weights and I would come home sore on every square inch of my body. But it was almost like a drug, it hurt, but it was a welcome change from day to day non-feeling. Now I am exercising my upper body a lot less, but doing a lot of walking and things seem to be much better. I do have back pain, especially when I sleep too much, but my arms and legs feel a lot better than when I was going overboard with exercise.

So, on to other things, I have been having problems with neighbours in my building. Actually, I honestly don’t know if a lot of it has to do with my own paranoia, and that I need my anti-psychotic medication increased or even changed. One of my neighbours came by a couple of months ago and went into a long tirade about people making noise. So at every chance I get, I try to do what I need to without making any unnecessary noise, but it doesn’t seem to satisfy anyone. This is where the paranoia comes in, when I make even a slight noise, any other noises sound to me like a retaliatory noise, and I really don’t want to start a war in a place I really like to live in.

It is more likely that the noise I make isn’t a big deal. The only really bad thing I do is to run the blender or the popcorn maker once a day at least, but I don’t seem to get any negative feedback.

The other thing about my paranoia is that I am finding it harder and harder to go out in public or ride a bus. If I can, I always like to sit near the back and to sit to one side rather than take up two seats. Of course there is almost always some loud, swearing jerk at the very back seat and as the ride moves on I always seem to think he/she is talking about me. It is really making it difficult for me to function. Other than that, things seem to be going so well I can hardly imagine my good fortune. I was asked to speak at a stigma stoppers symposium for some junior high kids, I was also asked to read some Christmas Poetry to 400 people at a Christmas Luncheon. I will put the Christmas poem below since I haven’t posted one in a while.

Funny enough, of all of the things in my life, it seems I am getting the most joy out of my new PS4 Pro system. I bought a game called Sniper 3 for it and it is so incredibly fun to attack bases and go on missions. One lone sniper against sometimes more enemies than you are given sniper rounds. I can’t even imagine how addicted I would be to this game if I were a young kid.

But, dear readers, I hope that has given you all some food for thought. If people do like this blog, or even if they don’t or want to see certain topics, the best way to make that happen is to leave me comments. Without them I am finding it hard to write on a regular basis. Please see below for poem, and Happy Holidays!

Well, this is downtown Edmonton again. In days long gone there was an old woman who was known far and wide as the “got a quarter” lady who was once immortalized in an oil painting. This woman was the very definition of a downtown icon. There was also a man who was a street corner preacher who could often be upsetting and somewhat hostile. Now, more and more the downtown core is either steel and glass office towers or another added condominium complex. My big question as I see old buildings get torn down and expensive new ones opening up is, where do all the homeless, the jobless, the hungry, and especially the mentally ill go? The hospitals haven’t gotten any bigger, actually one of them, the famous “Charles Camsell” hospital was shut down and is now being redone as apartments. Despite all these new buildings, affordable housing is at a premium and the agencies that offer housing and care are fewer and farther between. I am so fortunate to live in subsidized and supported housing, but I often wonder where I could go if I ever had to leave here.

Regardless, there are more important things to discuss. I am happy to report that my transition from my once every two weeks’ injection has been successfully changed to invega, which only needs to be administered every four weeks. I am also getting used to my diabetes medication, Metformin which at first made me weak and dizzy. I feel that anyone who has a hard time taking medications really should try them for at least 3 or even 6 months. It is amazing what kind of changes can go on in that amount of time, our bodies can be extremely adaptable.

As far as my insomnia has been going, it has improved. I was sleeping on my new futon and had no idea that my back just wasn’t prepared for a firm mattress. I have gone back to sleeping on my good old Salvation Army $500 pillow top mattress and I have been getting such a great sleep. I was a little worried for a while because I had been using some mild sedatives to get me to sleep for a while, but now that I have gone back to my own bed things have normalized.

I don’t know how many writers there are out there who read my blog, but I do think that anyone who has mental health issues, and also for that matter, anyone period, should keep a journal of their thoughts, ideas, and general progress towards their goals in life. For example, something I have learned by keeping a journal is that taking my medications at the same time each day, as in 5:00am and 9:00pm is much more beneficial than taking them when I wake up or when I go to sleep. One of the reasons this is so much better and has afforded me a much improved quality of life is that when I get up at 5:00am I can have some time to myself, do some reading or some writing, and then go for a walk to a swimming pool or something like that and then have an entire day ahead of me. Getting into synch with the world outside my apartment has given me the ability to work part-time on a regular basis, make connections and make friends I never would have met, and literally publish 11 books in a short amount of time. I am also pretty positive that my medications work a lot better on my symptoms when I take them like this.

The other thing I wanted to discuss can be something hard to do, but it can be incredibly beneficial to a person with a diagnosis of a mental health issue, be it OCD or bipolar or schizoaffective disorder. It is all about having a friend. For some, especially those who are ‘shut in’ their homes, a pet can be the only friend they have. This is great, and I don’t knock this at all, but having a person you can do things with, go places, watch out for each other is something I consider almost an essential survival tool. Where do you meet people to be friends with these days? I used to meet a lot of people at 12-step meetings, but I think this can be an extremely bad idea. Not to knock the meetings, they do incredible good for a lot of people who couldn’t find any other way to get it, but in my own experience these people can be very controlling, aggressive, and often abusive. I don’t want to discuss any identities, but I will say I had two close friends I met in meetings that I should have ran away from screaming if I knew what they would do to me eventually.

I think one of the best first steps to finding friends is to get involved in a local schizophrenia society or mental health organization. This can be really difficult if you live in a smaller community, but if you are reading this it means you have access to a computer, which means you can access online resources. You can go to Youtube and learn about your illness, cognitive behavioural therapy, and look up your medications. Having knowledge of these things will help you in dealing with your own illness, and it will also give you a chance to one day give back to others who could easily be unknowingly suffering from a mental illness. I do know also that all of the resources that the Schizophrenia Society branch I work for are online as well, including podcasts, support groups, and more. Lastly, if you can afford it or if you can find a practitioner who works on a sliding scale, you can actually get counselling over the computer. As a last side note, there are many 12-step meetings online as well. Anyone who would like to access resources like these, please feel free to comment on this post or email me at viking3082000@yahoo.com and I will do my best to inform you of resources in your area.

Well, dear readers. Once again I am leaving you without a poem to think about. I would love to write more poetry and put them in these blog postings, but I have felt the writer’s block for the past couple of weeks. If anyone out there writes their own poetry, and doesn’t mind others seeing it, I would be more than happy to put a poem I choose with my next blog, but don’t worry too much, I think I am at heart a poet and will have more for those who enjoy them soon. For now, think about some of the things I have been discussing with regards to being mindful of your surroundings (for example by taking a walk and noticing things like what the wind feels like, what the temperature is, what birds can see you, what kind of people live in the neighbourhood) and also think about what I said about using medication times to ‘synch’ yourself with the outside world. Isolation can be poisonous to those of us who suffer, keep it to a minimum and remember you can always reach me at viking3082000@yahoo.com

Here is a nice summer shot of downtown Edmonton I took on a long walk from my Dad’s place from the south side of the river to the north side. After today’s poem, I am going to talk about my recent walking and exercising and how it can help people with mental health issues.

Yellow Liquid Bread

By: Leif Gregersen

July 18, 2018

Silently the old men sip the golden liquid, putting off the total numbness

One man looks around and sees the faces, sees the signs of total madness

Bar patrons old and hateful, filled with beer and faithful sadness

Most felt it would have been better to have followed their teachings to the letter

They each had a reason for believing but saw God to be unforgiving

The yellow fluid slides past the lips soon reaches the liver

It seems to them that beer is the true forgiver

When like now, all ties to fellow man are severed

Each day they face the screaming that is so frightening

They live their lives in dreams and sleep in nightmares

Although the TV screens all seem to be filled with happiness and glory

Each half-drunk patron longs to one day tell his or her own story

Many tried before and after fifty repeats they were told it was too boring

But it is all that gives these people any kind of life or meaning

Poor, forgotten warriors, hell bent on finding some kind of redeeming

And then a man they once had seen in there often but was almost forgotten

Who disappeared at a time when he looked ready for a coffin

Came in with joy and the hope that some of his luck may rub off him

He shows them pictures of a wedding celebration

And of the gifts his long-lost son had gave him

And then the photo with the highest meaning

The one that leaves this tired old man beaming

And showing that deep down he always had human feelings

It is the picture of a baby whose looks can’t be mistaken

This young boy has his grandfather’s face and he even got to name him

The joy resonates throughout the bar that was once his home

And the new grandfather realizes that when he drank here he was all alone

He buys a round and then skips out to use the phone

He never did go back there until he heard an old friend had a heart attack

He could mourn or celebrate there but the spirit in that evil place was far too black

Today’s Blog Entry:

Good day to everyone around the world who follows this blog. Today I wanted to talk about how important it is to fill up your time when you are struggling with mental health issues. I can recall a lot of times when I was on medication that didn’t seem to be helping me that had horrible side effects. One of them made me so restless I could barely sit still to have a coffee or read for a few minutes. What I did at that time was to pace around my apartment, then find a short story in a collection I had at the time, (I would look for a really short one) and then read it and start the whole process over again. I fear that if I hadn’t found things to do in some of those difficult times that my situation may well have ended up much worse.

For a long time I have been filling up my time with different things. I started out working as a security guard, then worked my way up to becoming a stage hand in a union. Working as a stage hand was really hard, I had to know how to do a lot of things and I had to be extremely physically fit and there were a lot of people who treated me like garbage, but the good part was that it filled up a lot of my time, made me tired enough to sleep well, and got me to meet a lot of people. One of the hardest parts of this job though was that it seemed anyone who I was friends with didn’t stay friends after they learned I had a mental illness, and it seemed a lot of the other people in the union that weren’t friends would treat me bad. It is important though to own your own problems. I couldn’t blame people for having wrong ideas about mental illness, and I couldn’t change other people’s minds because they had a poor knowledge of mental illness. I was there to work, to learn, and to cash a paycheque so I could do some of the things I dreamed about for years, like going to London, England.

I have always believed that when a person becomes ill, they need to follow certain steps. The first, and this can take place in or out of a hospital, is to see a psychiatrist and get on medication that works. This can take a lot of time, but it will definitely take less time if you aren’t honest with your Doctor. The next step takes place while a person is still getting used to their medications which can be very difficult. This is where you start to go into therapy and join support groups and take classes that will help you manage your illness better. The next step is to take job training or look for a volunteer job. Then what can be the hardest step of all, I feel a person should get a job, even if it is part-time supportive employment at the Schizophrenia Society like I do. Nothing will make you feel better than to get up, be a part of society, have a reason to shower and keep your clothes clean. Even a volunteer job can be a great idea. If you are having a long period between work, something I like to do is to go for long, long walks, 6-10 miles sometimes. It helps with my weight, it makes me feel great and so many other things. When the weather is colder, I prefer to go to the pool and use the exercise bikes and swim, which are other great ways to keep busy. You don’t need to fill up your day with power lunches and world class workouts, you just need to give yourself a little push to get out, see the sun for a little while be it winter or summer, and try and do a little better each day. Reading can be great too, but there are people I know of who isolate themselves with reading (or video games, or using the computer). Try joining a book club, or having friends over to play video games with you and only play a limited amount each day. At the end of the day, pick up your wellness journal and tell it what you did, how you felt, how you feel you could improve. It will be so much better if you had things to write about other than that you took your medications and watched some TV. Get creative and find ways to meet people like yourself. I hope this helps, much of it is repeated from other blogs I have written, but only because this is so important!

Good day dear readers. I have been having a pretty amazing past few days despite that I got both good and bad news. If I were to sum up the things that went well, I would try to use just one word, “community.” I feel very blessed to live in McCauley (which is where the photo above was taken) because now that I have been here 17 years, I am making so many friends, getting connected with so many opportunities, and I even feel that my illness is further into remission than I thought it was.

This past weekend, I had a table at a music festival in the arts tent and I was really happy to find out that people like my photography and put a high value to it. I had framed up a few photos and sold 3 of 4 pieces I put out. One of the things I love about photography is that you need a lot of the same skills a hunter does like patience and awareness of many things such as light, the paths that subjects may take (in my case often birds) but you don’t kill anything. I hate to admit it now, but when I was a teenager I had a rifle and it was just about the only thing that gave me any joy to go out in the wilderness and hunt small animals. Now I hunt them with a camera and it pays me back in way more joy and even a few bucks now and then.

The music festival was pretty amazing, I also was the M.C. for part of the show on Sunday and got to hear some amazing bands. It is amazing how good live music sounds, if it is good music it reaches right to your heart.

I should actually talk just a little about some of the bad side of things here. I might have mentioned already in this blog I have been diagnosed with diabetes. A lot of people get it, but it is in no way a small thing. The complications from it are far-reaching, it can lead to things such as blindness and losing limbs. And it can be extremely difficult to follow the diet that is recommended for it. I have to admit being a little blindsided by the whole experience of finding this out. I would say though that I am glad I found out so now treatment and adjustment can begin. I suppose these types of things are just a part of getting older.

To say a few things on the topic of mental illness, I am actually almost starting to see my illness(es) as a blessing of sorts. Now that I went through the horrible times of being mentally ill, being in a hospital, almost losing all hope and many other difficult experiences, I feel that I have something important to share with others that only I can talk about because I’ve been through it. I just want to end today’s blog with a message of hope. There really is recovery be it far off on the horizon. There really is a state of remission you can get to where you have complete or close to complete control of your symptoms. I’m at that point now and I cherish each moment I have to sip a cup of tea, sit in my favourite chair and read, watch a movie or a Youtube clip. I know I’m not going to be 100% healthy and happy forever, but I’m going to hold on to the good times with friends and family and even the enjoyable times I spend by myself as much as I can. I can’t tell anyone if there really is an afterlife, that is more a matter of faith than anything and you can’t just tell someone to have faith and expect them to understand everything you do all at once. I just know that family, friends, love is precious and for as long as I can I’m going to hold onto my health and wellbeing so I can enjoy them to the fullest.

This was just before the winter began in Edmonton. Look for summer photos soon!

Poetry For My Fellows (blog to follow)

I thought I had gotten

As well as could be

But the voices and cravings

Got the better of me

Slowly the world shifted

Somehow I was at its core

I won’t give you excuses

I just won’t speak of it anymore

When you lose you mind

It doesn’t go all in one day

But it will strike you blind

No matter what people say

Yes I went crazy

Yes I was insane

No I did not choose it

This imbalanced brain

I want to be normal

Have kids and a wife

But most people don’t even trust me

With a dull butter knife

It’s hard to keep going

Alone and hopped up on meds

Writing weird poems

While everyone rests in their beds

L. Gregersen, May 8, 2018

Well, it has been a good and bad day. My head is reeling a bit because I have been working very hard and denying myself a lot of things and then I went and gave away $630.00 that I don’t think I will ever get back. I find it so hard to not be generous with people I care about. The fact is that it doesn’t hurt me much to give away that money, I just really feel a bit foolish about it.

Today I went for an eight kilometre walk, then later went swimming and to be honest I feel great. It’s just that I really don’t know if I will even sleep tonight. It sometimes seems this blog only gets written if I can’t sleep, but often it does seem to help. I have to do a presentation tomorrow and I also have to drop off some stuff with my brother. I have to admit feeling a bit lost because my Dad is in Denmark right now and I have come to really depend on him. I used to think he was an awful, cruel person, but now I just see him as a sweet, caring man who used to have an anger problem and is dealing with it. He also went through hell to quit drinking and since my Mom passed away he has done some incredibly kind things for me. I have to admit to having an anger problem of my own that meditation is helping me to deal with. I also am going to sign up for therapy soon after I come back from Toronto late this month.

I just can’t believe how far I have come. Sometimes I think about being killed in a car accident or something and I really feel confident that I have done enough to have led a worthwhile life. One of the big things for me was that I wanted my words to live beyond my simple existence, and in many ways I have accomplished that. I have even had two of my short poems sandblasted into the sidewalk in my neighbourhood for all to see. As a kid I always thought that the really amazing writers, the greats, never really die because their words go on. I also feel really happy because I seem to have gotten myself into a state of balance, a state of recovery in my mental illness. I wish I could bottle up this feeling and give a little bit of it to the young people who are still struggling, let them know that there is a lot of hope and that it is so important to keep fighting the illness (bipolar/schizophrenia/all others) because the human mind and body is so amazing and adaptable that although it may take a lot of time, life can be so good, and I do feel that life is precious and that all of us are loved. Hope that helps a bit dear readers! Stay with me and keep your membership to this website, I am planning some awesome changes in content and structure soon after I return from my trip!

Have a quick look at the previous photo to put this one in perspective.

Here are some poems that I submitted to a magazine but were turned down today. I hope my readers here see some value in them:

Walking Meditation

There is a way to meditate

That doesn’t require chanting

Walking meditation

Focus on breathing, the first step is to mind your breath

Be mindful of your surroundings too

Use the clash of images

To clear your mind

Breathe slowly

Focus

And try not to think of this poem

END

I Remember You

If I described it to you it would no longer matter

This thing you call a relationship

If the emotion and the feeling isn’t there

My words won’t create them

Years before we met

I saw you on the bus

You were so cute, so beautiful

So young, fresh and perfect

And when I saw you again

Not only did the years melt away

But you had become old enough

To hit on

You see, my words can only

Ruin things

END

Living Room View

I stared out my window

And pondered my day

The moon in its brilliance

The sunrise approaching

Life giving water

Strewn frozen below

Thinking of places

Where the water is ocean

Where the sun climbs above you

As you lay in the sand

END

The Tall Oaks

Further up are the oak trees lining 97th street

They weren’t here before, they just seem to be

From a thousand years ago

They stretch their long limbs pretending

To be wariors brandishing swords

As the masses

Safely traverse the street below

END

Today’s Blog:

Well, not a whole lot to say today. I am kind of curious if there are any other writers out there who would like to form an online group of some sort to critique each other’s work and support our efforts. There are tons on Facebook, but they all seem impersonal.

Well, my mental health seems to be good. Lately I have been looking into CBT or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and it seems it can really help someone like me. From what I understand, with many sessions and a lot of work, I can train my mind to stop going into negative thinking. Something I don’t like to talk about much is that there are a few ideas ‘stuck’ in my consciousness. Some of them are memories of things I’m ashamed of doing, some of them are results of delusions I had about some girls I knew when I was in my early teens. It makes it pretty hard to function when these memories seem to keep beating me down, but I am starting to see hope that I can gain more control over them.

Other than that, I have been neglecting my physical health a little. One one side, I have been drinking a lot of fruit and vegetable smoothies, but on the other side I haven’t been getting as much exercise as I should. It is so important to keep yourself feeling healthy with a balanced diet, medication taken on time and regular exercise because things can degenerate quickly.

So, I will end things at that. I just felt my readers might like some of the new styles of poetry I have been experimenting with. I hope all of you have a wonderful Spring, except for those darned Australians who I hope have a wonderful Fall 😉

So, for those of you who don’t know, this is me some years ago. Since then I have gained a few pounds, my hair is not naturally blond anymore and I have quite a bit more money than I did then. This picture shows me wearing faded jeans with holes in them, a leather jacket my brother gave me and a sweater that used to be my Dad’s. Funny how when you look back, in some ways you had everything someone could wish for, but at the same time had nothing.

In this picture I was still a young man yearning to be a writer. Now, I am actually a person who is considered a professional writer. As I did then, I now live alone, but have a lot more supportive and encouraging friends in my life. I think back then I had a condition similar to the one I have now, that is a sense that I’m not really there, that the things going on around me aren’t real.

Anyhow, to get down to brass tacks, once again I have found myself needing to get to sleep for something important and completely unable to sleep. I have even taken some melatonin and a sleeping pill together and can’t even seem to lay still in bed. I often wonder if a day filled with high energy activating does this to me. Yesterday I took a long walk with my dad and then went for an invigorating swim. First thing this morning, I walked about six kilometres to an appointment and back, then walked later to a hospital to visit a sick friend.

I don’t really seem to understand what the solution is to this dependence I seem to be getting for sleep aids. I know that if I go on the ones my doctor will eventually prescribe that they will start to affect my memory. I also know that there are certain rules I am not following regarding my sleep. The first one, is that often I sleep in. The second is that I don’t avoid caffeine after a certain hour, and one of the worst ones is that I often take naps. If I could somehow stop doing these things I am sure I will be able to lick my problem with sleeping pills, but they can be very hard things to do, especially when a person doesn’t work full-time. I don’t know now if I am able to work full-time, though I do feel I am close. It almost scares me that in my life I have never really held down a full-time job for any amount of time. I just end up getting too stressed out, I become unable to sleep as always and walk around work like a zombie. Eventually I just sleep in, unplug the phone and let them fire me as I get the morning rest I feel I desperately need. This is a luxury I am sure is not available to millions of people who have a mental illness and don’t have a disability pension.

Well, that is about all I can type on that subject for now. I think I am going to try and write a poem today, any feedback would be appreciated.

Years, Months, and Days All Slip By In a Haze

life keeps lingering in the dark wee hours

the joys of youth slip away that once were ours

we long for days when resting simply meant putting down your head

now I begin to fear my next refreshing rest will come when I’m dead

To think of times of stuffy bears and being tucked in by dad

the only joy I needed in life was the love my family had

a brother, sister, mom, and dad and a little cat

riding bikes with friends far and wide with my Pittsburg Pirates hat

summer came so slowly and slipped away so fast

now it seems that summer only meant happiness far back in the past

I don’t want to reminisce too much and cut open a scar

Because I know when I think of my departed mom my thinking has gone too far

So let me dream of the future, accept but forget the past

let me think of conquests and adventures that soon will go by so fast

In honesty it feels so good to live alone and choose my own personal fate

I have everything I wanted now, including freedom for which I no longer have to wait

Yes it was hard to lose my mom and one day I will lose my father too

I can’t explain how I will feel on that day or what things I will have to do

I just know that being a grown-up means facing some pretty harsh realities

This is the view of Edmonton from my back door. The tall tower on the right is going to be 80 stories tall, which is now possible in Edmonton because we closed our municipal airport

Please Scroll Down Past Today’s Poems for Today’s Blog

Love confounds me

When I know you are with him

And I am here. alone

Did I not give you so much more

Than long curly hair and muscles?

* * *

Hold on my son your pain will subside

We are only a few decades

Away from holiness

Peace everlasting

Hold on

* * *

A moment ago

It all seemed so perfect

And yet with the passing of time

I think maybe

Sanity still eludes me

Hello Dear Readers! So much has been happening lately I don’t know where to start. All I can say is that if you are out there suffering and it seems like there is no hope, hold on. If you are seeing a family member struggling and it seems like you are going to lose them forever, hold on. If you have lost a loved one or feel like so much has happened you will never recover, hold on.

Just a few short years ago my life seemed like it was over. I had spent six months in a mental hospital, I had no more faith in myself or modern Psychiatry to help me but I inched ahead. Somehow the world was a better place when I left the hospital and I was able to experience recovery. It took years. It took pushing myself past all the limits I had. It took working a job that was extremely difficult and dangerous. But somehow at the end I stopped and looked and there I was, just the same person who had accomplished so much at a young age. I learned that it didn’t matter what type of limitations life put on me there were no limitations in my heart and soul. I have been writing, I have been teaching, I have been giving public talks about my illness and my own story and it feels wonderful.

Each one of you out there may have something holding them back. I’m too old. I’m disabled. I don’t have the money. Age means nothing. We all have the possibility of living far beyond expectations. Money is a number on a paper doll. Learn to live on 90% of what you bring in and seek out knowledgeable people to help you make the extra grow and before you know it you will be able to do anything. If you are disabled, take whatever you can do, measure it, time it, and do it now, today. It could be reading a poem, typing a short story, sending a letter to someone you are about. Tomorrow do a little more. The next day do a little more. Soon your days will be filled with accomplishments and satisfaction that will make you forget you are disabled. There is so much hope for all of us. All we have to do is remind ourselves how precious each day is, how incredible it is to have others in our lives to share the good and the bad. I will leave you with that and hope you can leave me comments and look through my website. Once again, for Edmonton residents, my books are available at Audrey’s Books on Jasper Avenue and also at the Edmonton Public Library. Keep the faith!

A view from the meeting room for the University of Alberta Humanities 101 class

Hello dear readers! I have two apologies to make, one that I haven’t contributed to this blog in some time, and two that I don’t have a poem for you today. A lot has been going on in my life, I have taken on some new duties. One of them is setting up and facilitating workshops for a very cool project in the McCauley community of Edmonton called “Word On the Street” the project takes in contributions of short poems from community members and in March there will be a jury selecting 40-60 poems each of which will earn the author $100.00 plus the poem will be sandblasted into the sidewalk in the area. Anyone who reads this and works, lives, or volunteers in McCauley in Edmonton, drop me a line and I will help you enter (viking3082000@yahoo.com). I am also going to take on a new aspect of my work with the Schizophrenia Society, I will be working as a phone peer support person once I can fit in some time for training. It is funny, but for many years I thought my old job was ideal, doing no really difficult paperwork or challenging problems. The pay was phenomenal and I got to see all kinds of concerts sometimes right from in front of the stage. The truth is that I am so much happier now that I am working with people who have mental health issues, and using my abilities and knowledge to further the cause of reducing stigma and easing the discomforts of being mentally ill. In a strange way it is almost like I have been given a gift of being mentally ill and by using this experience to help others I am making myself happy.

Life seems to be going well for me. Again, a message for anyone living in Edmonton, you can now get 7 of my books and 4 of my eBooks at the Edmonton Public Library. One of the things I think is great about the library carrying my books is that I am slowly becoming more well known, slowly being asked to do more interesting and rewarding things. To go back ten years and think I would have ten books out and two more on the go would have seemed nuts. I should put in a plug here for formal education. It took me so long to write my book, longer to find a publisher, more time to experiment around to find out how I wanted them printed and distributed. If I had somehow gotten into a creative writing program, I could have hit the ground running. I have a very close friend who did just that (though our situations are not identical) and he now has a wife, a child, a new car, a great job and 20 books in print and more offers coming in all the time. One of my biggest regrets was that I didn’t take advantage of all the different types of learning I could have when I was in high school. I did manage to get a pretty good education, but there were things lacking that didn’t need to be. I could have explored my physical side and challenged myself more by taking part in Phys. Ed. and sports in general. I could have taken cooking and home economics and been a much better fed bachelor. I also could have taken mechanics and shop and had a much more well rounded education and had skills that served me. Drafting could have never hurt. Of all the courses I did take though, funny thing was that typing was likely the most important and has paid me back in so many ways, at least since I have been writing. One little course in grade ten changed the course of my life.

But who can really blame a young kid for not understanding the world he is about to face? I was lost in struggles for girls, struggles for popularity, struggles for friends and to work enough to afford a car. I often think about how if I had spent just two hours a week actually working on something to benefit myself, be it math skills or anything really, I would be so much further along. And I had that time to spare, there were nights when I would stay up past midnight and watch six hours of late night black and white shows (plus David Letterman). I had a lot of priorities mixed around. One of the things is that if I had known how dangerous it was to use pot I would never have used it even the few times that I did. I may have tried to find a place to live when the fights with my Dad were really bad. All that is the past though, and in reality, the future is pretty bright. I do honestly wish though, just about every time I see some dumb kid making a mess of his or her life back when it was early enough to do something about it, I wish I could reach them, talk to them. Change their minds. Well, dear readers, that is pretty much the signal for me to stop typing when the sun breaks through my window. All the best and feel free to comment or drop me a line.

All I can do is marvel at animals that are capable of flight, the one thing in the world I have found makes me the most happy and energized

Scroll down past today’s poem for today’s blog entry

Winter Poem

By: Leif Gregersen

As the days slip by so fast

It often seems that nothing lasts

Not our love or our generation’s song

Our time to rejoice and play is gone

If things only lasted long enough for me to feel

That the loves I once had were real

Just as real as all the days

Sadness came to me in waves

I have regrets that my only way to cope and deal

With my pain was to take a pill and just not feel

Feel either good or bad just dead

But not trapped inside my own head

When I was not quite yet a man

From commitments I always ran

Not understanding how love grows like a flower

Gaining beauty, gaining power

I wanted so badly to be free

I masked and hid the love inside of me

Now I’m both lonely and alone

Never quite feeling like I have a home

Deny it, but I say we still can have a chance

As long as there is one more dance

Though I think you understand the fact

Time is slipping by for us to act

There is also one thing I wish you knew

I hate myself for hurting you

I also think something else is true

You get sad and lonely too

So take my hand and come with me

Knowing that love still can set us free

November 14, 2017

Good day dear readers! I have been so encouraged by the increasing support and exposure I am getting for my blog that I have decided to do more entries than I usually do. Either that or I have found that working on this blog is one of the best cures for insomnia I have this side of sleeping pills.

Perhaps the whole idea of sleeping pills is a good issue to discuss today. For the past four days I haven’t taken anything to get me to sleep and I feel better for it, but not 100% yet. I should tell some of the back story, I have a lot of commitments from working for the Schizophrenia society to teaching creative writing and other things and I really need to be rested to do these things well. Lately I have been trying a few different sleep aids to help with this and they seem to do more harm than good. I thought maybe if I talked about them here that people would be able to avoid some of the pitfalls. To start with, I have my Psychiatrist’s approval to use melatonin, a naturally occurring hormone that can help balance out a person’s sleeping habits. It has some funny effects though, one of them is that if you (or at least in my case I have, I am sure other people have had different experiences) take it for a while and start to tolerate it, the pills can do something much worse than help you sleep, they can cause extreme restlessness that amounts to a type of seizure of legs and back muscles/bones. It is a very disturbing experience, one I have only ever before had in the psychiatric hospital when injected with a serious tranquilizer because I was “bad”. I still take melatonin now and then, but I am very careful about how frequently I use it. The other problem I have found with it is that it can make you very drowsy the next day and leave you with a desire to sleep a very long time.

The next pill I sometimes take for sleep is one that is called clonazepam or rivotril. I take it in the 0.5 mg orange pill. It looks a lot like the average gravol tablet and is very powerful. It is a tranquilizer along the lines of valium, but without some of valium’s more serious side effects. This is a prescribed medication and I am only given a few every couple of weeks which I use sparingly. This pill seems to be highly addictive because when I take it I feel very relaxed and soon drift off to sleep and feel better for the next day, but if I don’t take it for a few days I start to get edgy.

Those are the major ones. There is a pill called imovane, a blue little football shaped pill that I suggest people avoid. It is extremely addictive. I also want to warn people that sleeping pills in just about any form I have encountered them end up being a crutch and can seriously affect a person’s memory. Time and time again I have found that the best sleep aid is to get out and get plenty of fresh air and exercise. In my own daily routine, if there isn’t something for me to do that requires a long walk, I think of something. I seem to always be able to find a reason to get out of the house like walking to the warehouse grocery store a few miles away or walking to the post office. I used to like to bring and iPod with me when I did this, but lately I have just enjoyed walking as a form of meditation. I have to say that in the past short while I have been getting a bit lax about my walks and exercise in general and I have felt much worse as a result, physically and mentally.

The final thing I wanted to mention today was that if you find yourself sleeping days and staying up nights, there is a cure, which can only really be done in the summer. You need three weeks and not much else. What you do is go out camping, leave behind all of your electronics and get up with the sun each day. In three weeks your biological clock will naturally reset itself.